Spring Break, Bare Ware

Day one of spring break I had hoped we would be able to stay inside all day and do all the cleaning.  And I mean: cleaning.  I wanted to do closets, and drawers and dust things I don't dust, and move and vacuum under things.  I know!  You are impressed, right?  Unfortunately, that ended up being the day that Joe showed up to finish his work, and between hubby being home for 3 hours, and trying to watch the back yard, we didn't get near as much done as I had planned.  The children mostly stayed in their rooms, and worked pretty well.  But without my influence, they occasionally got distracted, and we just didn't get through everything.  At the end of the day (Monday), after our disappointing news from Joe, we decided that hubby would take a day off work on Wednesday, and we would go out and rake things and seed it.  So, since I knew we had another work day ahead of us, I decided Tuesday would be a fun day.  

I got this suggestion from a mom at church, and was kinda excited to go.  It is a pottery place where they have all the bare pieces ready to go.  The price includes all the glaze colors you want, and baking them in the kiln, so they are ready to be picked up in a few days.  Some of the pieces are quite large, and also, quite expensive.  So I let the kids pick out a few small ones and get to work.  Once they had wandered the store, and made final decisions (which, was, like, super difficult man) they sat down to pick out their colors.

I was surprised and pleased both by how well they worked, and how long they focused.

Even the Dyl man got in on it, picking two of the exact same little planes.

I didn't get a picture of Kelsey painting, but she did alright :)  Here are our pieces before they were baked.  Dylan did the two planes on the left.  Kari did the horse and train in the middle.  Kaitlyn did the dragonfly and the sea horse on the right.  I did the teacup and penguin on the outside of the bottom row, and Kelsey did the flower in the middle.

Of course I don't have a picture of the finished pieces, because that was days later, and....  well, I just haven't gotten all the pieces back together once they went their separate ways.

But the kids had quite a bit of fun, and would go back and do more anytime I offered.  I am pretty sure I want to take hubby back there at some point too.  I quite enjoyed it, and maaaaay have spent more time painting than the other four children.  If I am any indication, I think hubby would have a blast!